Return of An Elf and his Cat
by Valanya
Summary: Sequel to An Elf and his Cat. Please R&R!


A/N: Well gosh it's been a long time. This is my first fic in over a year, so I'm hoping I won't be too rusty. Sequel to An Elf And His Cat, so it might help to read that first! Mind you my fics don't make any sense at the best of times so it probably won't make much of a difference. Tell me if you like it :)

Disclaimer: I don't own Lord of the Rings sniff or any of the characters. BUT I have ownership or joint ownership of anything you don't recognise. YAY!

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"So…anyone know the way from here to Mirkwood?"

Nogm (the cat), Darwin (the horse) and Aragorn (the king) stared at Legolas with bewilderment. Even after knowing him for so long, the incredibly stupidity of their elfy friend still occasionally surprised them by reaching new heights. Even Darwin, and he was just a horse. Admittedly, Rivendell (where they had travelled to after Legolas got extremely bored) was quite a long way from Mirkwood, but still…he _had_ made the journey perfectly easily many, many times.

Being slightly less prone to shock at her owner, and seeing that Aragorn was still frozen by it, Nogm took charge of the situation, as was her wont.

"Legsy, my furry friend-"

"I'm not furry."

"Yes dear."

"I'm not!"

"Of course you aren't, dear."

"…I'm not furry, am I Aragon?!"

"Only a little. Behind the ears."

In spite of the fun that playing "baffle the elf" was, Nogm could see that this was neither the time nor the place…still, that had never stopped her before.

"And somewhat in the ankle region."

"How do you know what my ankles look like?"

Nogm rolled her eyes, "I'm a _cat_. I'm on ankle level. A lot of the time you're very boring and I amuse myself by examining your ankles. Someone had drawn a smiley face on the left one a couple of weeks back."

Aragorn raised his hand, "That was me."

"Do I want to know why?" asked Legolas, looking worried.

"I needed to test my new marker pen. It said it could write on anything. I wanted to test that claim."

Nogm gave him a look which clearly meant that this revelation explained a lot of things, but she never got the chance to expand upon precisely what those might be, as at that moment a high-speed mushroom hit her on the head, with enough force to rebound and imbed itself in a nearby tree.

Legolas gasped, "There's a note attached!" He then turned to look at his cat, "You have a very hard head."

Nogm smiled proudly, "It's what comes of spending many hours running headlong into chairs when you're chasing cat toys."

Aragorn prised the mushroom out of the tree with his sword because, as Legolas had observed, it did in fact have a note attached. They gathered round in anticipation of what the note might reveal – a map to buried treasure? The last will and testament of an elderly but incredibly rich dying king? Some other kind of document that would lead them to riches beyond their wildest dreams?

Nogm hopped onto Aragorn's shoulder and read it out, "Beware of low-flying mushrooms."

Legolas nodded sagely, "Very wise advice."

Nogm looked at him, and in the most affectionate manner replied "Shut up Legolas."

"Hang on a minute!" Cried Aragorn in an overly-dramatic way. "I think this is a promotional mushroom!"

"How can you tell?" Asked Nogm, her attention diverted from annoying Legolas.

"It looks far too deliberately 'random'. And it has an exclamation mark at the end."

"So? Aren't notes attached to mushrooms allowed to have exclamation marks in any more? It wasn't like that in my day. In my day you could happily attach a note to a mushroom – or any other vegetable for that matter – without having to worry about the types of punctuation marks, etcetera, you used within. But apparently those carefree days are gone."

"…Yes, Nogm. Anyway, it's quite clearly promotional because they don't want it to really look like it's just some strange thing that's happened. They want us to know that actually we don't have to worry because there is a point behind it. Which for us, actually makes it more of a strange occurrence."

"How so?"

"Well nothing we do ever has any point."

"Fair point. Can we go and find out what it's promoting?"

Legolas was shocked, "And play right into their corporate trap? They'll have us buying face cream or something within an hour!"

Nogm smiled, "Well that's ok. You could use some Leggy. You're not as young as you used to be."

Turning purple with frustration, the only response Legolas could come up with was "I thought we were going home to Mirkwood, anyway?"

Nogm shrugged (quite a feat for a cat) and said, "Yeah, but Mirkwood's boring."

"Boring? It's full of giant spiders and evil evil things!"

"Yep, same-old same-old."

"…so instead you want to go and find out where the promotional mushroom came from."

"Well done Legolas. You catch on quickly."

"But I want to go home." Legolas looked like he was on the verge of a major sulk-attack. Nogm knew how much precious time this would waste in the hunt for whatever the mushroom meant, and realised that she would have to use all her charm to persuade him.

"Legolas, you pointy-eared baby of an elf, you're coming with me whether you like it or not, and don't you dare sulk about it."

Legolas was slightly taken aback by this unusually harsh outburst from the cat – in fact, so much so that he forgot to have a tantrum and just looked at her worriedly. "Nogm, you don't have any sh…sh…sheep in you family do you?"

"No. Not I do not."

Legolas breathed a sigh of relief, "Good." Aragorn too looked relieved, but this was mostly to do with the fact that he knew if Nogm has replied 'yes', he would have shortly have found himself with a terrified elf cradled in his arms. And Legolas was not light.

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A/N: First chapter done! Still a bit rusty but getting back into the swing of things now. Please review. Please. I'll love you. And give you a cookie.


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